Obviously travel has changed a lot in 2,000 years, and it wouldn’t be possible to board a plane let alone get around Brazil without shoes. But our 21st-century creature comforts do make travelling more difficult. Some of the young people had small backpacks and were able to move with ease through the airport. Others had large rolling suitcases that were difficult to maneuver. One person even had to repack his because it was too heavy.
For the disciples, packing light was a way to rely on the generosity of God through others. For the youth heading to Brazil, packing light was not only a way of giving up reliances, but also a practical necessity.
Attending World Youth Day is a blessed time of learning about one’s self and one’s own faith life, and confronting conditions that are often uncomfortable and uncertain that force these youth to cling to God rather than to their stuff. Travelling through Brazil on buses, waiting for trains, squishing onto Copacabana Beach with three million other people would have been difficult for anyone, let alone those with large suitcases. We all know the struggles of wheeling luggage through a crowded airport, let alone a sandy beach filled with sweaty pilgrims.
When travelling to foreign countries, it is also important for travellers to keep an eye on their belongings since theft is a reality, especially for those who don’t know the ins and outs of the particular urban culture of the city they are in. Conversely, the disciples would have had little to worry about losing to thieves, since they had nothing of value, and because Jesus said to them, “whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either” (Luke 6:29). Most of the pilgrims that I saw at the airport had special concealed money belts to hide their reals (Brazilian currency), passports and other important documents.
Our modern world obviously presents travelling considerations that were not a concern for the apostles, and in this way pilgrims do have more practicalities to worry about than Jesus’ followers did. However, by our attachments to creature comforts we can add unneeded stresses to our travels.
The theme of this World Youth Day was “Go and make disciples of all peoples” (Matthew 28:19). Jesus spoke these words to the empty handed disciples as He sent them out long ago. In the same way, He commissions the self-sacrificing pilgrims who went to Rio and are now returning home, even if two millennia later travelling light has a different meaning.
(Boston, 25 is a third-year drama student at the University of Calgary.)